The present invention relates to a scanning apparatus for scanning image information of a document and generating a signal corresponding to the image information.
A scanning apparatus is used in a facsimile system or a printer having a copying function to scan image information (characters or image) of a document to be copied and to generate a signal corresponding to this image information.
A conventional scanning apparatus 2 is illustrated in FIG. 1. The apparatus 2 has a lamp 4 for exposing a document, a rod lens (light converging glass fibers) 5 for converging light reflected by the document and a photoelectric transducer element 6 for receiving light through the rod lens 5, and transducing an optical signal to an electrical signal arranged under a document table 3 for supporting a document. In this conventional scanning apparatus 2, the rod lens 5 is arranged such that the optical axis thereof is substantially perpendicular to the document placed on the document table 3. In other words, the longitudinal axis of the rod lens 5 is substantially perpendicular to the document table 3. For this reason, the height of the apparatus 2 is increased in accordance with the length of the optical axis of the rod lens, resulting in a disadvantage. In other words, the apparatus becomes large as a whole.